Shame the Devil (Portland Devils #3) - Rosalind James Page 0,12

You wouldn’t think a nose tackle would be all squeamish like that. It’s just fluids. And some solids, of course, but that’s how everybody comes out. I know that, because I’ve watched all four of my boys come out the same way. Only difference is, for once I wasn’t the one with my arm up there.”

Joan said, “It’s a good thing Amy’s at work. If you say that in front of her, you’re going to be sleeping on the couch for a month. A woman wants to believe that’s a moment of awe for a man, not that he’s thinking how much she reminds him of a heifer.”

“I didn’t say it wasn’t a moment of awe,” Dane argued. “Just that it was messy, but that I was used to it. That’s actually more romantic, because I could look past the heifer aspect and see the beauty.”

Waylon shook his head slowly. “Son,” he said, “no. Any time you’re using the word ‘heifer’ in a sentence when you’re talking about your wife, that’s a moment you’re going to want back.”

“Then how come she still loves me?” Dane asked.

“A question we ask ourselves constantly,” Owen answered.

Dane said, “Yeah? Where’s your wife?”

A moment of silence, during which Owen looked at his brother, the red flush mounting on his cheekbones, and then Joan said, “That’s enough.”

“Time to get back out there anyway,” Waylon said. “Harlan, you want to take a break, you go on. Ranching’s hard work if you’re not used to it.”

“I’m good,” Harlan said. “I do have an errand to run, but I’ll head back out there afterwards.”

Maybe everybody needed a break from having a visitor, keeping them from being able to say the bad stuff. Or maybe they’d never say it. If you asked him, though, it needed to be said.

Owen’s wife had taken off a year or so ago. “Didn’t like the ranch,” Owen had said. “She thought it’d be different, I guess. Wyoming dude ranch. Billionaire ranch, like in the movies. I’m not sure she liked me that much, either.” And that was all.

Owen had met her in a bar, which wasn’t always the best start, but you had to meet people somewhere, and an NFL career wasn’t the best for daily social interaction. She’d been tall, willowy, beautiful, and as animated as Owen wasn’t, and Owen’s eyes had followed her around the room whenever he’d been with her. When she’d smiled at him, he’d lit up like Christmas. Harlan had gone to the wedding, but he was lousy at telling who’d make it and who wouldn’t. He’d seen women stay with men you’d never imagine could hold them—his mom, for example, until she hadn’t, or the ones married to the guys with a different girl in every town they played—but a solid guy like Owen, who never did a crappy thing off the field and knew how to be there for somebody, couldn’t do it? Didn’t make sense to him.

The others headed out into the cold again, and he changed into a clean pair of jeans, then drove into Wheatland and scouted the wide, windblown, empty streets a while without finding what he needed. After his third pass by the Cut ‘n’ Yak, he gave up, parked the SUV outside Betty’s Diner, and headed inside.

It was quiet, like you’d expect, except for a table full of old guys in the corner, looking like the same guys you’d find in every farm town in the country. Their joints a little stiff from a lifetime spent outside, their shirts plaid, their arms ropy with the remnants of lean muscle, their battered caps advertising seed or farm equipment. Their sons would be working the ranch now, leaving them not much to do but sit around, drink diner coffee, and criticize the government. They took a look at him, summed him up as a big-city guy with suspicious hair who’d probably made a wrong turn off the interstate, and turned away again.

Harlan sat down at the counter, and when the waitress came over, told her, “Cup of coffee, please.”

“You bet,” she said, and headed off. Brunette, mid-forties, cheerful, and wearing the kind of shoes that told you she’d spent a lifetime on her feet. When she came back with the pot, she asked, “Come to see Owen Johnson, huh.”

Harlan ran his hand over his scruff of beard and asked, “Is it that obvious?”

“Well, yeah, hon. It’s the hair. You don’t see a lot of hair like that around here.”

“That’s what I was wondering.”